32 Comments:

It sure is about time that HA realizes that it cannot be above the law and it has no right to precipitate the killings and the destruction that it has caused. When would we in Lebanon have the courage of stating the truth?

This is very good news,i hope your country really gets the chance to rebuild and flourish is should. hopefully the UN and your people will take to the streets as they did to drive out the troops and whatever plans were intended will be thawrted. blessings, enriqueta

Lazarus, once we agree on whom to blame, not only the dead will come back to life, but also the bridges, power stations, airport, etc. will be magically reconstructed. It is like a spell in fairy tales.

No Lazarus admiting the truth will neither bring back the dead nor will it diminish the destruction or make the pain more tolerable. What it would do though, is to allow the process of healing to start and hopefully by facing the truth we would have placed ourselves in a position to learn from the previous mistakes. Maybe, just maybe, we might still be able to establish a modern thriving democracy that is inclusive and that will not permit any group to be above the law. Those that are in a permanent state of denial are doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

nothing will bring the dead back or the infrstructure ( u might have told this to nassrallah before he started this whole mess!!!)

But at least we know and learn how to stop this whole mess and never ever allow this to be repeated!

Lobby? if you do not agree to blam hezballah then how can anyone pressur it to retreat 20 km and let the army do it's natural role. we as lebanese need to choose betwen a final democratic and strong state or forever be under the mercy of hezballah and Syria-Iran. Support your state, support Siniora and stop supporting Hezballah!!!!!

i know I am not there to endure the mess. I do think that the deeper root must be acknowledged or as Isreal saids they will just be back again a year from now, it is a part of the hope of the extremist to undermine freedom of expression for all people...

As for the Saudi being a parrot of Bush, when was the last time an Arab leader stood against another in the world stage. Your country has a real chance for change, At some point doing the right thing for the betterment of society and the world actually makes sense.with all do respect. blessingsEnriqueta

ya khayi bob. did anyone say "support hezbollah". are things that black and white? that if we say to the Israelis that they are massacring our people, that means we support Hezbollah.

You must have heard Olmert's demands today. Reasonable ones? i.e. can they be implemented within a day? You tell me. If not, then who is the terrorist at this moment of time? Hezbollah, or the IDF?

Ghassan, you assume that we are in denial over Hezbollah's role? If that is what you have picked up, then so be it. All I see is a bunch of extremists raping the moderates, on both sides of the border. In the meantime, while we bicker over pointless issues, people die, dreams are shattered, memories evaporate, and towns are razed to the ground. I don't see why a modern thriving democracy would hold Israel any less accountable for the crimes they have committed in the past week than a backward and dead democracy. A crime is a crime. A murder is a murder. We should stop dotting our i's and crossing our t's if we want to provide any form of help for Lebanon.

I'm from Turkey, we have PKK terror on our lands for about 30 years now. We've lost 40.000 Turkish people because of PKK terror. Yet it's going on to take lives. It's done in the name of "liberation of Kurdish people" in Turkey.

Yet Kurdish people are suffering from this terror.

When they infiltrate their terror camps, they find equipment from France, Germany, Belgium and even England ( of course they deny it ). The terrorist are very well trained on Iraqi lands, so our government warns Iraq goverment all the time.

Our army never did the thing that Israel is doing today. I'm not talking about 2 soldiers. I'm talking about thousands of people, and soldiers were lost because of PKK terror, and we know which countries are supporting it. But we don't invade their lands, we don't shell civilians. And we keep on dying. Not that our lives are not worthy, we know that bringing death on thousands won't do good for anyone.

i m proposing to call Hezballah responsible and stand with me and just demand them to stop if a large number of Lebanese do that and stand with their goverment i beleive that it is a start to fidn a solution?

what is yours?just blaming Israel will not get us anywhere?no one cares! For onec we Lebanese must help ourselves! STAND WITH YOUR GOVERMENT and demand Hezballah retreat from the south!!!!

as u said extremist are on top and playing their games, so can i affect Israel extremists ? no! all i can do is confront Hezballah!

I second Hilal about the number of comments.. we wanna reach 100 comments also :D especially that we have Bob who is calling for peace with Israel now.

Bob : Enjoy your peace with Israel... Oh i forgot : why don't you go and live in Israel or KSA if it pleases you ?..

Anyway, as much as I'd like to blame someone for what's happening, it's DEFINITLEY not the time for this. WAKE UP. The israelian operation was prepared long time ago. It is not the question of the two captured soldiers, IT IS DEFINITLEY Bigger!

Gokahn your example with turkey is ironic because several years ago your goverment has threatend syria with war so they will stop the PPK. What is even more ironic is that you have used your alliance with Israel as a muscle for your demand. BTW it worked and Pappa Assad capitulated.

in your dream assaadLebanon is my country and i m staying it itif you can't accept my views than it is you who is not ready to be lebanese because being Lebanese is accepting each others no matter how different we are...

Shmulik, you're right. Our government did it, I don't deny it, because Syria left us no choice.

We also threaten the countries and their leaders who are supporting PKK. I'm sure that some of our politicians are behind some assasinations and other dirty things.

But here is the thing. Politics and war are different things. We still didn't kill a single Syrian citizen (which is totally not related with terror ) yet. And we don't intend to.

That's the dilemma about terrorist organizations. You know a country supports it, you have the proofs, but as long as they keep denying it you can not use large scale military force on them. But as long as they keep doing it, you have to punish them. But not like this. This is not the way. Israel is on the path to hell.

See the Ottoman empire dominated the lands that you're living today for more than 300 years. There were Shiites, Christians, Jews, Muslims. I'm not making this up. Just look back in the history. You will not see a single culture, religion, belief, language or ethnicity harmed or kicked out from their lands.

I'm not writing these to satisfy myself. I'm not against Israeli people, nor their religion, nor their ethnicity whatever. I'm just trying to convince people not to support this unfair war, and agony put on Lebanese people. They don't deserve it. Nobody does.

Gokhanseveral things:1) Ask the Serbians, wallachians, romanians, arabs, greeks and many many others if ottoman rule was so good, ask the parents of christian children that were kidnapped to become Janissaries. I may not know ottoman history very well but i do know jews were treated as second class citizens in at least some places and times in the empire (much better than in Europe, not good enough to teach me moral lessons using the ottomans :) ).2) I have said it in another post but forgive me if I don't believe that if Assad has shown some spine, you would just say OK our threats are meaningles. The fact Nassaralah (and his Iranian masters) are more though doesn't make you more moral but I guess that since Assad has wussed out we will never know it for sure.3) I know full well that your army is stronger than the Syrians but still you werent ashamed to ask our help ;) 4) I know you have been to Beirut and not Haifa. I know you know Lebanon and not Israel but as I have shown in another discussion with you (confusing that we talk in 2 discussions) we only want to defend our borders.

shmulik, I really feel like this is the last time I'm replying you, but it was a pleasure to have this discussion with you. At least it was civilized and entertaining enough.

1) Some of the nations you've listed probably have motivations against Ottoman empire ( like the Indians against England ), cus it ruled their lands for a long time. The thing about jews depends on the time range, but they were never killed unless they become a problem for the empire. As you said much better than Europe, who didn't hesitate to kill them in millions. Ottomans never had a conservative religious structure (until the last 70-80 years before it collapsed), because it had too many ethnicities and religions. Everyone were allowed to have their own temples and their own way of living (sounds like democracy, except you can't elect who rules ). I'm not trying to teach you anything, but it's a good example how to work things out in the middle-east, which has been a problematic region for centuries.

2- I've replied that 3- There is nothing to be ashamed of, i'm sure if we kept Nasrallah in our prisons, or he was in our reach; Israel would ask for our help to capture him.

I was trying to tell you that there are other ways to get something done. Because of it's geopolitical position Turkey has lots of enemies (we can't fight them all by ourselves, and we don't want to), and a long-term experience in political games. See Turkish Gambit the movie.

4- I've never been to Beirut, and Haifa. I'd love to visit both(unfortunately I won't find a chance to do that).

I know Aleppo, Syria (it's a beautiful city). Which is supposed to be my natural enemy because they support PKK against my country. They were very kind, and I feel lucky I've been there before it's destroyed.

Well this is not about me, nor Ottoman Empire. Hope there will be a cease fire.